Away Day Tales: Episode 2 - The Manor Ground (17th March 1998)

Many will wonder who plays at The Manor Ground and the answer is nobody - it's been knocked down and is now a private hospital. But until 2001, it was the home of Oxford United, one of Reading's local rivals and increasingly so following Robert Maxwell's bid to merge the clubs in 1983. At aged 17, my 1st away game that I'll never forget.

👆 The match day program

It was a Tuesday night in the old 1st division (what's known as the championship now) and Reading were struggling, just inside the relegation zone. Oxford United were mid-table with very little to play for other than pride. As with many of the matches, I remember very little about the game itself. A friend of mine from school's dad supported Reading, so he took me and my friend to the game after school, a short drive down the A4074.

It was an old ground, with terracing as opposed to the ubiquitous seats seen in English grounds now. And we were caged in. That's right, football fans weren't much loved in those days so they kept us in cages.

Source

We'd have been in the uncovered terrace and it's fair to say that the cage took a bit of a battering that night. At one point during the match, some joker came and proudly hid next to me claiming:

"Me and my mates just kicked the gate down, they got arrested but I got away."

And this sums up my memories of the evening. I can't remember the goals, I just remember events in and around the match. A fans forum that writes match reports described events as follows:

"We were shit. No, that's unfair. To shit. (After all shit performs wonders on grass) Oxford played us off the park with ease. It wasn't that they were particually brilliant. It was just we were so bad. Anyone could have beaten us last night. We were lucky to keep it down to just the three - although we have Colgan and that lanky Francis who was truely shit to thank for that." Source

I did find the highlights though (I was amongst the fans behind the goal for their 2nd and 3rd). Open the link below to view them.

Oxford United 3-0 Reading - Match highlights

So it's probably a good thing I'd forgotten about it.

There was a sit down protest after the match calling for the then manager Terry Bullivant to be sacked having been dumped down to bottom of the table (from where we couldn't recover). He resigned just days later blaming the internet for his downfall.

This wasn't enough for some fans though and having heard much about football hooliganism growing up, I saw it first hand as Reading fans rampaged through Oxford City Centre.

"Welcome to away support" I thought to myself.

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I really struggled to choose which game to write about so if you're enjoying reading my stories, please vote for where you'd like my stories to go next with the choices being:

• Millenium Stadium - Playoff Final
• Wembley - FA Cup Semi-Final
• Griffin Park - Brentford
• New York Stadium - Rotherham
• Prenton Park - Tranmere

I found it incredibly hard to shortlist these 5 so please comment if you'd like to see me talk about somewhere else. Feel free to vote for more than 1 option if you're not sure.

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Previous Articles
Episode 1 - Anfield (20th October 2012)